1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



647 



F£ditoriaC 



^v,,.^ e,R. Roo-r ^ 



NATIONAL BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION. 



Object:— To rromote and protect tho interests of its mem 

 bers; to prevent the adulteration of honey. 



Officers:— E R. Root, President, Medina, O.; R. 0. Aikin 

 Vice-president, Loveland, Col.; Dr. A. B. IVIason, Secre- 

 tary, 3512 Monroe St.. Sta. B, Toledo, C; Eugene Secor, 

 General Manager, Forest City, Iowa. 



Board of Directors:— E. Whitcomb, Friend, Neb.; W. Z 

 Hutchinson, Flint, Mich.; A. I. Root, Medina, O.; E. T. 

 Abbott, St. Joseph, Mo.; P. H. Elwood, Starkville, N. Y.; 

 E. R. Root, Medina, O.; T. G.Newman. San Francisco, 

 Cal.; G. M.Doolittle, Borodino, N. Y.; VV. F. Maries, Cha- 

 pinville, N. Y.; J. M. Harabaugh, Escondido, Cal.; 0. P. 

 Dadant, Hamilton, 111.; C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



Fees:— Annual membership fee, Jl.OO. Remittances may be 

 ' " ' Manager as above. 



sent here or to General . 



Our subscription-list is increasing more 

 rapidly than we have ever known it to before. 

 For this we are grateful. 



We are compelled to give eight extra pages 

 again, as we have so much good matter on 

 hand that has been awaiting insertion. 



I SUCCEEDED in catching Rambler on a gen- 

 uine ramble. He was on the bicycle ; and, al- 

 though he has passed his threescore years, he 

 has acquired the regular bicycle hump. I 

 will show you the picture later. 



I HAVE been told that the very excellent 

 anti-adulteration law that was recently enact- 

 ed in California is now being made a dead let- 

 ter. The same informant says that a large 

 corporation owns the glucose interests in that 

 State, and is seeing that its interests are not 

 hampered by this recent piece of legislation. 

 I hope this is a mistake. 



Until one makes an extended tour of the 

 South and West he can form no adequate 

 comprehension of the immensity of the bee- 

 keeping industry in those sections, nor of the 

 big scale with which the Westerner, including 

 bee-keepers, does things. I kept my kodaks 

 snapping right and left ; and if the negatives 

 are good I'll give you more peeps at some of 

 the things I saw. 



The black locusts, in California, in some lo- 

 calities, seem to kill the bees when these trees 

 are in bloom ; at least in the vicinity of Han- 

 ford I was told there would be hundreds and 

 thousands of dead bees found under them. 

 But in other localities, as, for example, in 

 Colorado, the same trees were considered one 

 of the important sources of honey; and, what 

 was peculiar, they had no bad effect on the 

 bees that gathered the nectar. 



Some little time ago I promised to tell 

 about the bee-keepers' paradises in Texas. 

 I have this on the docket, and it will appear 

 as I take up the line of my travels. But since 

 running across that paradise I have run into 

 two or three others. There is one west of the 

 Rockies, in Colorado, that is not yet over- 



stocked with bees or bee-keepers ; another 

 one in Central Idaho — in fact, I do not know 

 but the whole State. These will be described 

 in turn. The fact is, millions of capital are 

 being invested in irrigation ; irrigation means 

 alfalfa ; alfalfa means a paradise for bees ; but 

 I found all along my trip that alfalfa-growing 

 preceded bee-keeping by two or three years, 

 for it seems to take about that length of time 

 before bee-keepers find these gold-mines that 

 have been hitherto unoccupied. 



Mr. H. W. Collington, editor of the Ru- 

 ral New - Yorker, will be one of the speakers 

 to represent bee-keepers at the joint session 

 of the bee and fruit men, at Buffalo. This 

 session will be made up of the members of 

 the American Pomological Society and of the 

 niembers of the National Bee-keepers' Asso- 

 ciation. The Rural New-Yorker, according 

 to A. I. Root, is one of the best agricultural 

 papers published. It is practical and up-to- 

 date, and Mr. Collington, its editor, a pleas- 

 ing speaker, has been an open friend of the 

 bee-keeper. He manifested much interest, as 

 it will be remembered, in the Utter v. Utter 

 case, urging that it be carried up to the higher 

 court for appeal, which was done. 



A LIST OF THE GREAT HONEY-PLANTS WITH 

 LONG COROLLA-TUBES. 



In addition to the great honey-plants, red 

 clover, buffalo clover, and horsemint, of Tex- 

 as, that have long corolla-tubes, I can now 

 add to the list the mountain sages of Califor- 

 nia, especially the white sage. This last has 

 quite deep corolla-tubes ; and I was told, 

 while on the coast, that unless these corolla- 

 tubes are very full the bees do not get much 

 honey from this source. This is exactly the 

 case with red clover. So it appears that long- 

 tongued bees, if good in the North, will be 

 in great demand all through the South, 

 throughout Central and Southern California, 

 as well as throughout all those States that 

 grow red clover ; and I have been surprised 

 to find so much of it in the West. It appears, 

 then, that, // long-tongued bees are an ad- 

 vantage on red clover, they will be equally ad- 

 vantageous in the case of all the other honey- 

 plants I have named. 



GENERAL IMPRESSION OF THE IRRIGATED 

 REGIONS OF THE GREAT WEST, 



I ARRIVED home from my trip, of some 6000 

 miles in the cars and 500 miles in a buggy, on 

 Tuesday, the 16th, just after our last issue 

 went to press. The whole trip seems like a 

 dream to me now — a beautiful dream of para- 

 dises for the bee-men and ranchers whom I 

 visited. I did not take in all the best bee 

 country of the great West, but I went through 

 some of the very best of it. 



Some things that I could not have believed, 

 had they been told me, I now credit because I 

 saw them. When they told me, for example, 

 that fence-posts planted in the ground would 

 grow into trees in those irrigated sections, I 

 did not believe it ; but when I saw some posts 

 that were sprouting — that is, leafing out, and 



